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Splicers (BioShock)
The Splicers are the main enemies of the BioShock franchise. The most common survivors of Rapture's population, they are invariably addicted to the gene-splicing wonder drug ADAM, and have been left hideously deformed and hopelessly insane as a result. Due to their delusions and continuous need for ADAM, Splicers are extremely dangerous, and will attack almost anything they perceive as an obstacle to their desires. Though few of them are lucid enough to follow any concrete goal other than the fulfillment of their own deranged whims, Andrew Ryan's use of the pheromone control system is able to motivate them into following orders; later, the support system offered by Sofia Lamb keeps the Splicers loyal to her receptive to more complex commands. As such, Splicers often serve as the foot soldiers of more lucid villains - in particular, more lucid Splicers with the authority to command them. The different models of Splicers all sport different voice actors over the course of the games: these include C.G. Walker (Baby Jane), Adam Sietz (Breadwinner), Dr Grossman (J.G. Hertzler), Raynor Scheine (Ducky, Bioshock), Susanne Blakeslee (Lady Smith), Joshua Gomez (Pigskin), Betsy Foldes (Rosebud), Marcelo Tubert (Toasty, Waders), Rick D. Wasserman (Brute), Yuri Lowenhal (Crawler), Owen Thomas (Buttons), and Prudence Wright Jones (Heady). Traits Every single Splicer in Rapture began as a relatively ordinary citizen: initially, most of them would have been attained their status due to recreational splicing, sometimes in pursuit of physical beauty, sometimes while looking for a product that could make their lives easier, or sometimes just for fun. However, with the advent of the Rapture Civil War, the proliferation of Plasmid-based home defense products ensured that many of Rapture's citizenry were forced to take to splicing in a desperate attempt to protect themselves from the violence of the rebellion - either in the form of Ryan's security forces or Atlas' rebels. Addiction eventually drove them to crime, increasing the violence and prompting further defensive splicings, leaving the city on a permanent downward spiral. By the time of Jack's arrival in Rapture, Splicers make up the overwhelming majority of Rapture's surviving population, having ended up killing most of the more lucid inhabitants. Without exception, their bodies have been hideously deformed by their addiction to ADAM - though some of this may also be attributed to Dr. J.S. Steinman's plastic surgery. Many of them still wear Masquerade Ball masks, possibly out of shame for their deformities. Left hopelessly insane as a result of the negative effects inherent to long-term splicing, the addicts spend their days wandering the corridors aimlessly, driven by whatever mad impulse occurs to them. Most can be heard loudly talking to themselves, either musing on situations that exist only in their imagination or actually conversing with hallucinatory individuals; some character types are so deluded that they cannot truly perceive the environment around them, while others are gripped by a sense of paranoia, lust, rage, grief or even religious mania that renders them incapable of thinking of anything else. Quite a few appear to experience mood swings, and can go from triumphant gloating to inconsolable sobbing in a matter of seconds with little prompting - or little obvious prompting, given their delusions. For unknown reasons, Splicers also appear to possess a kleptomaniac streak: Julie Langford notes with irritation that the Saturnine cult of Arcadia have taken to stealing almost anything they can carry, no matter how objectively valueless; even Langford's back issues of National Geographic ended up being purloined. This may perhaps explain the odd placement of items throughout the game, most prominently the audio diaries, many of which have ended up scattered over entire districts of Rapture. Apart from their delusions, the most distinctive element in any Splicer's personality is their compulsive hunger for ADAM. Unscrupulous in the extreme, Rogue Splicers are willing to go to any lengths to get their fix, and though some may balk at the prospect of fighting Big Daddies for ADAM, their hunger drives them to disregard self-preservation instincts as well: they are willing to prey upon unconscious Splicers recovering from their first hits, wage war upon one another, fling themselves into traps or other hazards, and even attack powerful Protectors they suspect of carrying ADAM. However, the most common means of securing their drug of choice usually takes the form of Little Sisters - and thanks to the ferocity of their addictions, few of them show any hesitation in butchering the Little Sisters for a chance at retrieving the Sea Slugs bonded to them. Splicers tend to wear very little armor (if any), but they have enhanced physical strength and tend to be extremely aggressive in contrast to the calmer Big Daddies. Despite their near-total disconnection with reality, the Splicers are still capable of rudimentary tactics: when prompted, they will work in groups, conduct ambushes and sometimes even play dead in order to get close to Jack before attacking. In Fort Frolic, a coterie of Spider Splicers loyal to Sander Cohen even took to coating themselves in plaster so they could mimic his sculptures, camouflaging them against detection. In Bioshock 2, following the eight years of splicing and surviving between games, Splicers have become much more formidable than those encountered in the original game. Their deformities are much more extensive, to the point that some no longer appear even vaguely human: their faces have often conformed to the shape of their masks, and some elements of their anatomy have begun to grow over their clothing. Their limbs have heavily mutated, becoming lankier and, in some cases, the bone structure remodeling itself, leading to the development of extra fingers, toes, or even talons. For good measure, the dwindling food supplies have left most of the Splicers extremely thin, a fact made all the more visible by their increasingly-tattered clothes. However, by this time, almost all Splicers left in the city are members of the Rapture Family, and due to the influence of its leader, Sofia Lamb, these cultists are much more stable than their counterparts in the first game: Lamb's organizational skills ensure that they are able to feed their addictions, and the fanaticism of the Family keeps its membership in line. Once they have inducted into the cult - either voluntary or through "therapy" - the Splicers of the Rapture Family are no longer hostile to Little Sisters; however, once Lamb has identified Subject Delta as a threat, they will attack him on sight. By contrast, the rogue Splicers who once dominated Rapture have since been forced to the margins of society by Lamb's takeover. Though they are no longer enslaved by Andrew Ryan's pheromone control, they continue to prey on Little Sisters, ganging up on their Big Daddies and overwhelming all resistance through sheer numbers. However, in recent years this has become a dangerous prospect for the rogues, for the Rapture Family is willing to go to great lengths to punish those who break their laws: any Splicer caught harvesting a Little Sister is to be hunted down by the Big Sisters and brutally drained of all the ADAM they stole. Between reprisals by these deadly new protectors and the vigilance of the Rapture, the rogue Splicer population is limited at best, and several of them have been captured and imprisoned at Persephone until they can be properly indoctrinated. One or two of these unfortunate captives can be seen when Delta visits it late in the game, still trying to snatch at the Little Sisters who gather freely outside their cells. Splicer Models Due to gameplay restrictions, most Splicers tend to conform to one of the specific character models in form and personality, with the exception of plot-critical Splicers like Sander Cohen and Reed Wahl. Each one of these character models possesses their own specific dialog and personality, and thanks to their madness, many of them are eager to share it with the rest of Rapture. In the original Bioshock, there are nine of these models in total. In Bioshock 2, some of these models continue in significantly upgraded forms, while others have been replaced by new variants, like the Crawlers and Brutes. Due to the extensive splicing that has taken place between games, many of the original model line have also undergone additional mutations and look significantly different as a result; in some cases, their personalities have become even more extreme - particularly in the case of Dr Grossman. Baby Jane So named for the character of Baby Jane Hudson, this female Splicer model was an actress prior to the events of the civil war - or at least she believes she was. Dialog throughout the first game suggests that she only got as far as the role of chorus girl, and in her attempts to find stardom, she may have murdered an actress competing with her for a part and left her body in a salt pond - likely due to Splicing-induced insanity. In the end, the Rapture Civil War forced her theater to close; with neither Andrew Ryan or Sander Cohen willing to consider her for a part, she was left destitute and trapped in the lifestyle of a Splicer. Regardless of model variations, Baby Jane still wears the off-the-shoulder cocktail dress she wore on the stage, and keeps her hair in a bob reminiscent of a 1920s flapper. Splicing and combat have left her in poor condition: her dress is torn and bloodstained, her stockings are in tatters, her body is covered in bloody lacerations, and her makeup has been smeared childishly across her face - likely to disguise the side-effects of long term Splicing. However, though she's the least-deformed of the first generation of character models, Baby Jane is still noticeably disfigured, her face distorted with scar tissue, her eyes shrouded with cataracts, and her mouth yawning open in a hideous gape. American-accented, she speaks with an extremely high-pitched voice that sounds almost squeaky at times, though her vocal quality takes a sharp turn for the deep and guttural when angry. Swinging wildly between delusions of grandeur and pursuit of an impossible ambition, she continues to believe that she is an actress, either claiming to already be a star or believing that she still has the potential to become one; while idle, she imagines herself in conversation with Ryan or Cohen, believing herself to be moments away from being given a plum role in a new production, even hearing herself complimented as "prettier than (Greta) Garbo." In combat, Baby Jane apparently believes that her opponents are rivals for a part, jealous co-stars, critics, incompetent actors, or even rowdy members of the audience, and can attack with screams of "Off my stage" and "he's running out of film, you idiot!" Even while she's trying to break into a vending machine, she's still convinced she's acting for a part, apparently believing that she's been asked to endorse an appliance for a commercial. Narcissistic in the extreme, Baby Jane can be heard proclaiming her stardom to anyone who'll listen, shrieking "I'm special!" and "you're just jealous!", even demanding to be given better material to work with. When not lost in her visions of stardom, she may occasionally recognize the awful reality of her situation, and may break down in tears over her lost beauty, bawling over how she was "supposed to be famous." More often than not, however, she blames the players for it. Here, gripped by obsession and grief, she demands to be told that her opponents love her and grows even angrier when players don't return her feelings - only to break down in tears and whimpered apologies if she actually succeeds in killing her target. In Bioshock 2, Baby Jane has fallen even further: with no theaters open in Lamb's new society, the former actress has been forced to resort to prostitution in order to get by. As such, a great many of them can be found at the Pink Pearl Brothel in Siren's Alley. Frequently, she seems to perceive Subject Delta as a client trying to attack her, calling him a pervert, insisting that "this wasn't part of the deal" - even calling for help in the belief that she's about to be raped; at other times, she dismisses him as a pimp trying to take over her business. She responds particularly badly when Delta approaches her with an adopted Little Sister, telling him to "leave your daughter at home," believing that he wants to make the child watch them have sex, or just screaming at her to "stop looking at me." Due to a decade of splicing, her appearance has also deteriorated: now extremely emaciated, her chest is little more than a shriveled ribcage, and her spindly limbs are swollen with malignant tumors at the knees and shoulders. Baby Jane's face is particularly hideous, as her remaining teeth have lengthened to peg-like fangs, and her lips appear to have receded, leaving her with a permanent rictus grin. When not acting as a prostitute, she remains caught in her delusions of stardom, most of which appear to have grown in the intervening years: arrogant and ludicrously conceited, she regards potential intruders as fans, autograph hunters and stagehands, regards fellow splicers as critics and paparazzi, treats Little Sisters as gofers, and even goes so far as to treat Big Sisters as her personal rivals - attacking them with screams of "you're my understudy!" "Chorus girl!" "Stupid talentless cow!" and even "I'm prettier than you!" When hypnotized, she believes that she has been secured for a prestigious role, and is immediately proud to be working with "a great director"; at times, some of her insecurities bleed through, and she's reduced to tears of joy after being left without work for so long. She even quotes Shakespeare while surveying dead bodies. Underneath her delusions, Baby Jane's rage, grief and thwarted ambition remain intact: when aware of her status as a prostitute, she can be heard insisting that she's still an actress and sobbing dejectedly - as if imagining herself being dismissed as a whore. She appears to be deeply afraid of aging, believing it to be an even greater danger to her career than splicing, and at times can demand that the Little Sisters give her the secret to eternal youth. For all her delusions, she remains a loyal member of the Rapture Family, and will infrequently shout Family slogans while attacking. Breadwinner Originally a minor businessman back in Rapture's heyday, the Breadwinner has lost everything to the economic collapse of the city, including his chances of attaining the success he always wanted. However, his delusions do not permit him to notice this; unlike Baby Jane, who is often lost in her hallucinatory daydreams of being a star, the Breadwinner is lucid enough to acknowledge the grim state of Rapture but refuses to admit that it cannot recover from this: instead, he claims that the economy is just going through a "down patch," that he himself is just having "a bad quarter," and Ryan will be able to support him until he can make a name for himself in the world of business. However, the current violence of the city makes his rhetoric sound more akin to that of a gangster, particularly in his frenzied defense of his "territory." In keeping with his business-oriented nature, he insists on wearing expensive suits, incorporating pinstriped jackets and trousers, double-breasted blazers, garish ties, fedoras, and even whole suits rendered in white silk. However, Rapture is still a flooding, garbage-strewn warzone, and the suits have all suffered accordingly: many of them are befouled with blood and dirt, the material has begun to fray, and some variants have even been daubed with white makeup. Occasionally, he will complain of the damage done to his suit, claiming that he just had it pressed, but at other times, the damage to his attire escapes him completely. Under the brim of his hat, Splicing has left the Breadwinner's face a jowly, sagging, misshapen mess of scars, wrinkles and warped bone: his jaw is exaggerated, his eyes are deeply sunken, his nose is bulbous, and his right ear has been heavily bandaged. He speaks in an extremely rough Bronx dialect, perhaps in mimicry of Fontaine's own distinctive drawl - only making him sound even more gangsterish as a result. Overall, it seems as though the Breadwinner's particular illness is some variant of narcissitic personality disorder: arrogant, vain, pugnacious and greedy, he styles himself as a corporate mastermind, guaranteed to rule Rapture's economy without equal; he believes himself superior to the likes of Frank Fontaine, and that he is bound to reach ever-greater heights of success - though indications are that he isn't nearly as clever as he thinks he is. In fact, his delusional pride leads him to regard just about every single area in the game as his rightfully-earned property, and can be heard screaming at enemies to get out of his office. Just about any enemy is seen as a business rival, an "amateur" trying to muscle in on his business. Crude and profane by nature, he often bombards enemies with extremely misogynistic epithets, considering "woman" and "little girl" as the most insulting words in his vocabulary. In the sequel, the Breadwinner's deterioration is particularly apparent: like most Splicers, he has lost even more weight due to the limited food supplies, and has had to trade his business suit for the kind of formal attire worn by guests at Rapture's last New Year's Eve party; this can include white tuxedos, pinstriped dinner jackets, bowties, flowers in his lapel, or spatted shoes. Of course, most of this has been badly damaged over the years, for not only are his suits filthy and quite extensively torn about the trousers, but he is either missing a shirt or has no buttons left on his shirt, appearing bare-chested under his jacket. The Breadwinner's deformities have also accelerated: the right side of his face has been rendered lopsided by tumorous growths, almost forcing his right eye shut and leaving his jaw to sag dramatically. Despite his skeletal emaciation, his belly is bloated with hideous growths erupting out from under his jacket, and bulbous lumps of flesh protrude from holes in his sleeves and trousers. As with all Splicers, his insanity has grown all the worse: he seems even more arrogant than ever before, claiming that he is "king" of the city, demanding services from "peons" around him, claiming that he makes the rules, and insisting that he actually employs the players; he even claims that he has no competition at all, and that everyone in own bows before him. Despite being a member of the Rapture Family and espousing the virtues of the common good, he has not abandoned his greed, attacking the players in defense of what belongs to him and him alone, even trying to claim a Little Sister as his own ADAM-factory. Similarly, he swings wildly between believing that Sofia Lamb has everything figured out and believing that "the market will straighten this Lamb twist right the fuck up," even though Rapture hasn't had a functional economy of that nature for almost ten years. Even under the influence of the Hypnotize plasmid - which usually at least forces some level of camaraderie on affected Splicers - the Breadwinner is a friend to nobody: he either regards the player as a business partner or his superior. His misogyny has also grown: he can be heard claiming of the need to build a bloodline and rebuild Rapture's population, and even implies that he's actually been acquiring women for a harem that can bear his children. For this reason, his dialog towards Big Sisters is second only to Toasty in sheer unpleasantness: while attacking them, he can be heard to claim that he is performing a "mating dance," and insist that he has to take them home; at one point, he can even remark, "you want this, admit it!" all but stating his intent to rape the Big Sister (though such attempts invariably end with the Breadwinner either dead or running for his life). Dr Grossman One of Rapture's medical personnel, Dr Grossman is naturally first encountered in the Medical Pavilion alongside the likes of Dr Steinman. However, any grasp of science and medicine he might have once possessed has vanished, along with his professionalism, his sanity, and even his understanding of the Hippocratic Oath. Much like Baby Jane and the Breadwinner before him, he still clings to the belief that he is still a success story: believing himself to be a qualified medical professional, he surveys dead bodies as if he were a medical examiner, regards players as difficult patients, and even believes that there is a nurse somewhere in his vicinity that will follow his orders. However, any delusions of grandeur on his part are ultimately superseded by his deranged neuroses. Of all the Splicers in Rapture, he possesses the least variations in attire: as doctor, Grossman naturally wears a surgical smock, apron and mask, along with medical reflectors and other headgear, with the only changes being in the color of his clothes and the kind of headgear he wears. Needless to say, his clothes are almost always soaked in blood and filth, ironic considering Grossman's germaphobia - though he does occasionally notice his in the sequel. Under his mask, he is usually bald, and his face appears almost skull-like thanks to the distortions of bone structure; he occasionally sports bloodshot eyes and even heterochromia. He speaks in a refined Mid-Atlantic accent, and usually utters dialog with a disturbed, even disgusted tone of voice. Interestingly enough, his appearance in Bioshock 2 is the most consistent from his original model, containing little changes other than a slight exaggeration of his jutting cheekbones and sagging skin. Of all Grossman's numerous mental maladies, the most obvious is his rampant germaphobia, which is so extreme that sometimes it appears to verge on obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: repulsed by the "filthy things" he has to touch as a doctor, he claims to be aware of germs getting under his nails and crawling around at night, and in combat screams about how toxic and infectious the player must be. Despite being almost always soaked in blood, he reacts with disgust at being splattered with his opponent's blood, grumbles about how unhygenic corpses are, and in one line of dialog, prematurely ends his search for the player so he can run off and wash his hands. This phobia is frequently coupled with his distinctively unscientific belief that bacterial aren't actually microscopic, and that he can see microbes and death floating in the air, particularly on babies, who are supposedly born covered in it. At one point, his obsessive cleanliness leads him to scream apropos of nothing, "There's semen on everything! EVERYTHING! Aside from this, Grossman is also hampered by his overall lack of professionalism, which manifests as a mixture of both surgical incompetence and outright malice. In dialog he admits to forgetting what his pills actually do, making answers to difficult questions, implies that he once tried to push a newborn baby back into the womb, and even insists that a fever isn't a fever if he says it isn't; by contrast, he also confesses to making his male patients impotent as petty revenge for asking questions about their virility, and despises children with such a passion that the idea of murdering Little Sisters barely stirs a ripple in his conscience. Openly despising medical regulations, he only mostly meant his oath to do no harm, and regularly attacks players in a frenzied attempt to remove imaginary stitches. Furthermore, in one line of dialog, he claims not to have slept for weeks on end, which probably doesn't help his dwindling sanity. Close to a decade of splicing only make Dr Grossman even more deranged: while merely incompetent and mean-spirited in the first game, his counterpart in the sequel is actively murderous and psychopathic. In dialog, he chuckles over the fact that some of his "patients" never awaken from their anesthesia, gloats over the prospect of "uniting" children with their dead parents, happily describes himself as a butcher and a taxidermist, admits to spiking his nurses' drinks, claims that one patient arrived in his surgery with eczema and left crippled for life, and rhapsodizes on the horror-stricken expressions of parents who've just lost their children. Even his germophobia has taken a turn, and he now sympathizes with the diseases instead of the sufferers - sometimes even wondering if there's a point to cleaning the instruments, and describing tuberculosis, influenza and typhoid as "wonderful cleansing agents!" However, his devotion to the patterns of a hospital remain consistent: when hypnotized, he sees the player as the head doctor; in combat, he believes that Big Sisters are the mysterious nurses he refers to; he even believes that the Little Sister is a young patent - or a test subject. Ducky An elderly security guard, Ducky is so named for the peaked guard's cap he wears; without employers to answer to, he believes himself to be a champion of law in Rapture, often styling himself as an actual policeman if not a one-man vigilante justice movement. In most iterations, he wears his uniform cap, coat, waterproofed hood and boots, all in varying colors across multiple encounters, though most will be typically splattered with blood and filth. His face - the only part of his body left uncovered - is withered and desiccated, appearing pockmarked with old burn scars; his eyes are stark white with cataracts, and occasionally appear to glow. Self-righteous, xenopobic and bigoted, Ducky's defining metal disorder appears to be chronic paranoia: having embraced Andrew Ryan's belief in "parasites," he is under the impression that they represent an organized front ready to take over Rapture, and are in cahoots with "papists" and "race-mixers." Demanding that the borders of the city be closed against invaders, he claims "they want what we got" and demands that his fellow citizens prepare to "defend what's ours" - seemingly oblivious to how far the city has fallen. He even seems to believe that the parasites are watching him at all times. However, Ducky does not hold any particular relevance for the elite of Rapture or those who are attempting to replace them: he openly mistrusts both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine, believing the latter to be still alive and laughing at him, and will occasionally scream that Ryan can't take "it" from him - whatever "it" may be. Legendarily arrogant, he proclaims himself the sole bastion of law and order left in Rapture, believing himself to be disciplining unruly street kids or breaking up gangs of smugglers; seemingly forgetting his status as a lowly security guard, he proclaims himself loyal not to his paycheck but to his cause. Even in combat, he shouts a variety of cliched police catchphrases, including "spread 'em," "down on the ground," and "hands up." In reality, Ducky is just a bitter, confused old man trying and failing to wield authority beyond his position. Rather tellingly, in one line of dialog, he can be heard plaintively muttering "I'm lonely!" Ducky changes dramatically in the sequel: not only does he appear younger and sport radically different deformities, but he actually has a completely different personality, dialog, voice actor - namely that of Waders, right down to the religious mania. From this, it can be inferred that Ducky's character actually died during the interval between games and was replaced by Waders, promoted by Sofia Lamb in order to better utilize his mystical obsessions. A loyal member of the Rapture Family, he proudly devotes himself to Lamb's new religion of self-annihilation. This new Ducky can rarely finish a sentence without making a reference to religion in some way: when set on fire, he screams about baptism; plasmids are scene as witchcraft; he refers to Little Sisters as innocent lambs, and believes they sport seven eyes and seven horns; pitted against a Big Sister, he calls her the Whore of Babylon, and even believes her to be a witch that must be burned. When in combat, he quotes the Bible, referring to the opening of the Seals and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bragging that he will turn the sea to blood, calling the player a blasphemer and sodomite - and even claims that he can see the "mark of the beast" on you. When idle, he seems to believe that he can actually hear the voice of God, and when hypnotized, he perceives he player as the incarnation of this very voice. Lady Smith A dignified member of Rapture's upper classes, Lady Smith has fallen significantly from her once-lofty station, and has since been reduced to rooting through garbage cans and hacking vending machines for food. An old-money millionairess and borderline WASP caricature, she looks down on the poor and working-class folk of the city, and can often be heard expressing opinions even more racist than that of Ducky; for good measure, she has yet to realize that she is now one of the impoverished lower classes she so despises. An elegant older woman, the Lady clings to her wealthy origins by dressing in the same clothes she wore prior to the collapse of Rapture's economy, most commonly in the form of a fur-collared coat and expensive heels - all of which are soaked in blood and less-identifiable waste products by now. At the medical pavilion, she even wears a white version of the coat and a surgical cap, suggesting that Dr Grossman has secured her services as a nurse. Though her hair is still kept in immaculate Victory Curls, the left side of her face is a warped mass of scar tissue, and her mouth hangs open in a permanent sneer of disgust. At present, Lady Smith is in denial: she refuses to acknowledge that she is destitute and living on the streets of Rapture, and instead chooses to imagine that she is in her own palatial estate, at a restaurant, at her daughter's wedding, or at some other location divorced from her current reality. She regards stealing from the dead as gift shopping (and sometimes even as receiving gifts from her friends), mistakes the sound of intruders for mice, suggests bringing out the hounds from the stables to ward off burglars, and bids farewell to combatants as if exiting a high-society party. Throughout her time alone, she will hold conversations with imaginary people, including two personal servants named Bates and Sidney, and her husband, Charles - who she appears to be in the process of divorcing due to marital infidelities on his part. It is in these conversations that she frequently demonstrates some of her least pleasant mannerisms: dismissing the poverty-stricken residents of Apollo Square as "animals," she also expresses the opinion that the poor are just "more mouths to feed" - and even charges into combat screaming about her inherent superiority to the player, even referring to you as a "welfare hound" "looking for a hand-out." Also, she will loudly express disgust at the black population of Rapture, accusing them of theft and laziness even while employing several of them (or so she believes, at any rate). In Bioshock 2, she has degenerated quite extensively: having abandoned her coat for the tattered remains of an expensive dress complete with gloves, pearls and the occasional veil, her body is pockmarked with cancerous masses poking though holes in her clothes - one bursting out of her left glove, another oozing through the lower half of her blouse as a sagging mass of flesh, and several tentacular growths are ripping her left stocking apart. Her right foot resembles a hoof more than anything else, and appears to have grown a primitive "thumb" in mimicry of a stiletto heel. Her face is blistered extensively, her hair is an unruly mess, and her nose has receded back into her flesh, leaving her with only two nostrils and a bulging crease in her face to breathe through. In an odd twist, Lady Smith actually seems more sympathetic in the sequel, for though she remains as delusional and bigoted as ever, the nature of her delusions has changed: she is now aware that she has lost everything, and - with few exceptions - generally understands that she is poor and will never recover her fortune any time soon. However, Rapture's current state eludes her, and she still perceives the environment as the world of the surface: she mistakes players for a thug sent by the bank to repossess her belongings, and beg for you to leave her heirlooms. Often, she will muse despairingly over the loss of her possessions, that she hasn't slept in a warm, clean bed in ages, that her friends have all abandoned her, and she's been reduced to eating out of garbage cans. Perhaps for this reason, Lady Smith takes great delight in being hypnotized, which convinces her that she is in the company of another high society matron and being taken on strolls through gardens and afternoons on the town. Funnily enough, though, she will still occasionally scream classist insults at players - even while also spouting the egalitarian slogans of the Rapture Family. Interestingly enough, Lady Smith appears to have an unusual fixation with family in the sequel: while idle, she mentions that she once had three children, all of which are "gone" - though it's not known if they simple grew up and left her, or if they were killed or even made into Little Sisters. Later dialog appears to bear out this explanation, as Lady Smith seems to perceive Big Sisters as her teenage daughter, screaming "how dare you go out dressed like that!" and "does your mother's opinion mean nothing?" And though she regards Little Sisters as unruly and disobedient, she will react very strongly to the sight of the player adopting one, even hollering "drop that poor little girl, she's helpless!" Pigskin A professional athlete and a member of one of Rapture's football teams, Pigskin appears to have taken to splicing in order to enhance his performance, and - judging by his dialog - to impress certain authority figures, including his parents and even Andrew Ryan himself. Unlike many character models, his past is actually detailed in sources other than his dialog: the last football game in Rapture was cancelled due to a catastrophic fire at the stadium, and given the charred state of his clothes and the possible burn scars on his face, this incident may have begun Pigskin's final descent into madness - assuming he didn't set the fire in the first place. Still dressed in his uniform jersey, pads and helmet, he cuts a garish figure in the dilapidated corridors of Rapture, though his colorful outfit is somewhat muted by mixture of blood and soot layering the material. His face is leathery and wrinkled, and even seems horribly burned in some iterations; his nose has been broken backwards, giving him a rather piglike snout - another possible source of his name. Regardless of whether these deformities were caused by splicing, the fire, or some combination of the two, they appear to cause Pigskin a great deal of stress: in one line of dialog, he claims that the simple matter of breathing causes him agony, and in another, he tearfully whimpers that he just wants to go to sleep. Suffering from low self-esteem, anxiety disorders and a chronic need to impress authority figures, Pigskin also appears to be suffering from some kind of mental regression or arrested development: despite apparently being in his twenties, he behaves more like a nervous teenager, and can be heard calling out for his mother, growing steadily more upset when he cannot find her. Dependent on the approval of his parents and idols, he often believes himself to be in contact with them, promising his father to "make the game," and pleading with Andrew Ryan not to judge him. This constant need for support, combined with the pressure of succeeding in the eyes of his mother and father, has left him with several anger-management issues: in combat, he will take out his frustrations on the player with frenzied screams of "I am good enough!" and "is this good enough for you?!" For good measure, he also experiencing minor explosions of temper while trying to open doors and hack vending machines. Pigskin also appears to hear voices telling him to hunt down and kill the player, though whether he is suffering from schizophrenia or has somehow become aware of Ryan's pheromone control remains unknown: he seems to understand that "they make us kill intruders," and if he becomes aware that the player is sneaking around the area, he openly begs them to come come out to spare him from whatever "they" will do to him if he cannot find you. In moments of stress, he can be heard to repeatedly recite "they make me hate everything I see!" and "I just do what I'm told!" and if he manages to kill he player at any point, he will demand to know why "they" made him do it. The Pigskin Splicer does not return for Bioshock 2, either due to being killed off by Sofia Lamb due to his reluctance to fight without the influence of the pheromones, or simply splicing himself into a new form. Rosebud An industrial worker or menial laborer of some kind, Rosebud (so named for the massive Roseate tumor on her face) was once a mother and still cares very deeply for her daughter. However, her child is missing, possibly taken to be remade into a Little Sister. With this in mind, Rosebud's descent into madness wasn't merely splicing, but the loss of all hope that followed her daughter's disappearance. Never seen without her industrial jumpsuit, Rosebud likely spent her days prior to the civil war in engineering, factory work or maintenance, and keeps her sleeves rolled to her shoulders and her hair tied back in preparation for hard manual labor; some iterations even feature her wearing a pair of welding goggles. Among the more obviously disfigured of the Splicer models, she sports a fist-sized "Roseate" tumor growing across the right side of her face, erasing her eye, layering most of her skin in ugly red lesions, and leaving her head a permanently-misshapen mess. For good measure, her arms are covered with dozens of tiny welts and sores, and in close up shots, she even appears to have blood leaking from her mouth and remaining eye. She speaks with a strong eastern European accent, often in a tearful and barely-composed voice. Lost in her grief, Rosebud swings wildly between delusional fantasy and paranoid rage: at times, she believes that her child is still with her and needs too be defended at all costs, and can be heard trying frantically to reassure her daughter that she won't be killed or kidnapped; sometimes she pleads with imaginary assailants to to leave "my little one" alone but take her instead. At other times, she is aware that her daughter is gone and tries desperately to find her again - and believes that any enemy she encounters is actually the "monster" that took the child away from her. Similarly, Big Daddies are a particularly hated opponent, for when Rosebud attacks one of them, she does so not in order to secure ADAM from a Little Sister, but to rescue what she perceives as her daughter. Despite her apparent kind-heartedness, she is no less aggressive with her opponents than any other Splicer in Rapture. In fact, her in-combat dialog is almost explosive with rage and hatred; in the event that she succeeds in killing the player, she will actively gloat over your body. This Splicer model does not return in Bioshock 2; given Lamb's propensity for kidnapping children from the surface, Rosebud's obsession with children and finding her own daughter may have been considered a liability, prompting Lamb to have her quietly eliminated. Toasty A failed romantic and wannabe Lothario, Toasty spends half his time making grandiose claims of securing the affections of the girl of his dreams, and the other half sulking over his inability to get any attention from Rapture's female populace. In keeping with his mixture of lovesick fawning and narcissistic self-pity, he even responds to enemies the same way, either seeing them as obstructive relatives of his prospective girlfriend, or as women who spurned him in the past. Immediately distinguished by the bandage tied crudely around his head and the patch fastened over his left eye, Toasty is apparently named for the distorted, "burnt" look of his face: his face is misshapen with what appear to be burn scars, his nose forced upwards into a batlike snout, his skin a livid pink, and his lower lip sagging low enough to show his crooked teeth - leaving his mouth frozen in a pained snarl. His one remaining eye is sunken deep in his skull, always wide and unblinking. Amusingly enough, he can occasionally be heard making plans to save up for a visit to Dr Steinman, believing that a course of plastic surgery will make him irresistible to the objects of his affections - to the point that he's already saving up his prophylactics for this very reason... though given Steinman's later propensity for leaving his patients horribly mutilated, it's possible that this visit has already happened, and was in fact the cause of Toasty's disfiguration. Perhaps in an attempt to impress the ladies, he wears pinstriped trousers, a waistcoat and a tie, sometimes augmenting this with shades and fashionable hats; however, given the fact that all of them have been stained with blood and other less-identifiable fluids by the start of the game, his chances of impressing anyone remain distinctly slim. Perhaps due to Splicing-induced damage to his facial muscles, Toasty speaks with a low, slurring voice that often dissolves into angry spluttering. Bitter, resentful and misogynistic, he can frequently be heard grumbling over his past romantic failings, moaning about how his flowers were returned, or how he's not rich enough "to meet a lady" no matter how nice he is, or how he's already good-looking but nobody can see it. Sometimes, he can be heard openly pleading in his attempts to make himself romantically successful, at one point even singing Cole Porter's "You're The Top." More often than not, he becomes violent: he comments angrily on what happens to "those stuck-up types" who refuses him; at locked entrances, he can be heard screaming "damn you, whore!" at the woman he believes to be on the other side; while attacking the player, he apparently believes that you are actually the target of his unwanted advances, at one point screaming "report me, you fuck!" or "call the cops on me!?" and if you actually die at his hands, he may even say "you were asking for it. More alarmingly, some comments suggests that he has actually raped or murdered a woman (possibly both), as in one line of dialog he remarks "who was she, your sister, your cousin? I don't give a shit!" and in another "I found her that way, I never touched her!" Plagued by low self-esteem, Toasty blows his top even he believes himself pitted against someone who isn't an ex-girlfriend: apparently, Rapture's male population believe him to be a freak, and consider him such a joke that laughter has become something of a sore spot for Toasty - even when it exists only in his mind. Players can be met with demands to know if they've come to laugh at him as well, challenges to "just try" laughing at him, and at one point, a single enraged howl of "STOP... LAUGHING... '''AT ME!!!"' '' By Bioshock 2, Toasty looks even less human than ever before: though he no longer wears a patch, a huge fleshy growth has emerged from the side of his head, growing over his bandage and covering his right eye. His left wrist is swollen out of shape with similar cancerous growths, while sores and tumors have erupted through a hole in the calf of his left trouser leg; for good measure, his foot has bloated into a huge, misshapen lump of fused toes, forcing him to go barefoot. By his time, he only has one spatted shoe left, and the rest of his once-fashionable attire has deteriorated into rags. In the sequel, Toasty actually appears to have found a woman prepared to marry him, and they are trying to start a family together. With this in mind, much of his idle comments concern his attempts to cobble together a home worthy of his new bride and child-to-be - with mixed results. Likewise, his approach towards Little Sisters has changed: when attacking players with adopted Little Sisters, he can sometimes be heard asking to hold the child, or angrily claiming that Delta is going to hurt her. However, when actually trying to grab the girl during attempts at gathering ADAM, he'll swing wildly between trying to be nice and screaming abuse at her. Unfortunately for all parties concerned, Toasty's misogyny has not waned, and he occasionally slips back into the belief that he's still a bachelor: along with his usual array of sexist obscenities hollered at imagined females and occasion confessions of rape and murder, he is now prepared to attack Big Sisters while screaming rape threats. Also, in Siren's Alley he can be seen approaching prostitutes at the Pink Pearl, and when hypnotized, he admits that he's gotten thrown out of strip clubs due to unruly behavior. Waders Likely a dockworker or fisherman, having been first encountered at the fishery district of Neptune's Bounty, Wanders is so named for the distinctive gear he wears. A devout Christian, he has taken great exception to Rapture's strictly atheistic belief system, particularly with the practice of declaring bibles and crucifixes smuggled contraband; in the wake of splicing-induced madness, he now believes himself to be a righteous crusader tasked by God with the duty of purging Rapture of sinners. Apart from his eponymous clothing, work boots and elbow-length work gloves, Waders' most distinctive feature is his face: either due to extensive Splicing or improvised battlefield surgery, he appears to be wearing a piece of someone else's face over his own like a domino mask - a fact made extremely noticeable by the fact that the skin of the "mask" doesn't always match his own. In conversation, he speaks with a Spanish/Latin American accent, his dialog being occasionally dotted with Spanish words. Waders' defining character trait is religious mania: believing himself to be a penitent blessed by Christ, he can be heard to muse sadly on how he traded god for "Mammon" (meaning greed), repeatedly rants about he observes all His commandments now, and proclaims that he has turned against the city for its evil. Often, he speaks as if in direct communication with god, and swings wildly between begging him for guidance, musing upon what the Lord wants him to do next, or even asking "why have you forsaken me?" Sometimes, he can even be heard reciting religious nursery rhymes. Naturally, in battle, Waders' makes full use of a religious vocabulary, demanding repentance, promising plagues of boils and flies, reciting Hail Marys, chanting "the power of Christ compels you," and even threatening to kill the player's firstborn. Waders does not appear in the sequel; however, his voice actor also plays the part of Bioshock 2's Ducky, complete with a much younger model, a much better-fitting uniform, different deformities, and a devout personality that matches Waders - indicating that the original Ducky died between games and was replaced by Waders. Brute The top dog of the Splicer hierarchy in Bioshock 2, the Brute serves as both a specially-empowered Variant and a character model. Easily among the strongest, the most violent and the most dominating of all Rapture's inhabitants (apart from cult leaders like Sofia Lamb and Gilbert Alexander), his sheer strength allows him to ensure that he claims as much ADAM as he likes from those around him - either through violence, intimidation, or both. As a result, the Brute suffers from none of the insanity that other Splicers suffer from, with the exception of a great love of violence and a simmering bad temper. A giant of a man, the Brute has spliced his muscles and bone structure to the most powerful form he could achieve, apparently using little more than a cobbled-together mixture of gene tonics like SportsBoost and Armored Shell (as was the case with Leo Hartwig, the creator of the formula and the first Splicer to attain the status of Brute). Now built like a gorilla and often walking the same way, his gargantuan body visibly strains the fabric of his clothes: with pillar-like legs, arms like tree-trunks, a heavyset torso complete with a button-straining paunch, and a bald head caught in a permanent frown of anger, he makes an intimidating sight. For good measure, his face and arms are often clustered with bandages and band-aids to cover the aftereffects of the fights the Brute enjoys, and much of his body is clustered with tumorous growths, quite a few of which are beginning to tear through his shirt at the shoulders. Despite his hideous appearance, Brutes still likes to dress to impress, and takes some pride in his appearance: dressing in pinstriped trousers, undamaged shoes, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to display his colossal arms, all variants of the model wear a waistcoat, and some can be seen wearing bowler hats. First encountered in the slums of Pauper's Drop, the pride he clearly takes in his attire and appearance only make him more distinct from the impoverished Splicers he fights alongside, many of whom are dressed in little more than rags. In dialog, he speaks in a deep, smooth voice with a cockney accent, prone just as much to rumbling murmurs as bellowed war-cries - another sign of distinction from other Splicers. Personality-wise, the Brute is every bit as boisterous as the name implies: ruling through violence and fear, he communicates via a mixture of threats and expletives - being easily the most foul-mouthed of all the Splicer models - and regularly gloats over the things that he'll have to do to debtors if they don't pay on time. Proud and arrogant, he can be heard chuckling about past triumphs, styling himself as the the hardest man in Rapture and even proclaiming to have "brains, brawn - the whole bleedin' package!" He greatly enjoys violence, taking every opportunity to inflict it on others and encourage it where possible: often, if a player is able to escape being detected, the Brute will express disappointment that a fight didn't break out. In combat, he is particularly unrestrained, having the strength and resilience to pit himself against a Big Daddy and even win; with bellows of "FUCKEEEEEER!" he launches himself headlong at his opponents, clearly having the time of his life with every swing of his fist. Up against Alpha Series Big Daddies like Subjects Delta and Sigma, he will challenge them to one-on-one duels with "no gear," "like the Romans!" In fact, the only opponent that seems to give the Brute pause is the Big Sister, supposedly because he strongly dislikes needles - though the fact that he can be heard nervously protesting that "I ain't done nothing wrong" when in combat with one of them suggests that he is just as fearful of Sofia's elite as the other Splicers. Hyper-masculine and extremely homophobic, his combat dialog is peppered with slang terms for homosexuals, often calling the player "fairy," "poof," "molly," "mincing little fuck," and threatening to "shut your nancy mouth." On many occasions, he can be heard grumbling about "fucking sodomites everywhere," and claiming that he's "practically swimming in sodomy." He even has wild fantasies of one day building his own society for "real men only" once he's had a chance to "drown out all the buggers and the queens." Appropriately enough, the Brute is deathly afraid of being accused of homosexuality himself: along with flying into a rage at even the unspoken implication of being gay and protesting that any friendships he has are just that, he will mutter that he was once being coached to take up wrestling as a profession, but disliked all the "touchin' and sweatin'" and gave it up in favor of boxing. Many times, he will grumble that he can't even have "a proper mate" without being suspected of being gay, and angrily mutters the need to stop out certain thoughts. In an amusing twist, use of the Hypnotize plasmid reveals that the Brute is actually a heavily-closeted homosexual himself: at first merely regarding the player as a good friend, his dialog becomes increasingly flirtatious as time goes on, including compliments of your Big Daddy suit, remarks on how comfortable he feels being around you, and chuckled claims that "we're the biggest pair on the block." He will even claim that you are "the best bloke I know," assure you that he will do anything for you, and will even claim "I love you, ya little shite, I do!" When the plasmid wears off, the Brute reacts even worse than most Splicers, either desperately trying to cover up everything he said while under your influence or just expressing anger and betrayal after trusting you for so long. Furthermore, it turns out that one of his idols is none other than Sander Cohen, a borderline-openly gay artist, and can be heard commenting that he had "a nice suit, good mustache, took no guff!" However, despite his violent tendencies, hyper-masculine neuroses and domineering behavior, the Brute kowtows to by Sofia Lamb's control over Rapture and regularly attends her therapy sessions - though he seems a bit bemused by her suggestion that he "embrace he man in the mirror." Crawler The most tormented of all Splicers, the Crawler suffers with every moment of life, constant splicing having warped his anatomy into new and agonizingly painful configurations. Another Bioshock 2 model exclusive to one particular combat variant, the Crawler will always be a Spider Splicer - and vice versa; no other Spider Splicer models exist in the game. His past is still unknown, though idle dialog firmly states that he had a perfectly ordinary upbringing, and claims that he tried to splice himself to be taller, faster and stronger, but for all his efforts, still can't splice himself back to normality. Next to the Brute, the Crawler is the most horribly disfigured of all Rapture's citizens: unnaturally pale, tall and thin, his skeletal structure has distended to an impressive degree, leaving him with eerily long limbs; his feet are structured more like that of a bird, with four toes at the front and one at the back; his fingers are long and clawlike, though the thumb has atrophied and the pinkie appears to have grown to replace it. His skull is elongated and noseless, with one bony projection having covered most of the left side of his face, leaving him only a single yellowed eye to see with; he has no lips, only bare gums clustered with tiny, broken teeth. His deformities are made all the more visible by his frequently limited clothing: most of the time, the Crawler wears only a ragged singlet, tattered shorts, and socks. On occasion, the model can be seen wearing ragged suits, though they will always sack shoes - likely because his feet can no longer fit in them. Barely coherent and likely schizophrenic, the Crawler mentions hearing voices, experiencing hallucinations, chronic insomnia, and endless pain; as such, he alternates between mistaking the players for a "goddamn fever dream" or believing them to be the source of his delusions. Either way, he regards killing as the only way to end his suffering. Screaming and howling in agony, he will fling himself at his targets with delirious accusations and pleas for mercy, at times charging the player with a single drawn out wail of "HELP ME!!!" Insomnia seems to be a particular problem for him, for by now he has no idea how long he's been awake; attempts to sleep are frequently interrupted by the voices in his head, and he claims to hear them at all hours of the night regardless of sleeping or waking. At times, he has difficulty understanding that corpses are dead, and will occasionally ask them for medication or recommend that they seek therapy with Lamb. Additional dialog suggests that his problems have actually been exacerbated by Sofia Lamb's treatments: having started attending therapy sessions with her when his problems began to spiral out of control, he was booked for several advanced treatment courses when normal methods didn't work. Given Lamb's goal of eradicating free will, these radical therapies were likely intended to keep him under control rather than actually help him: accordingly, the Crawler frequently suffers flashbacks to some of these treatments in battle, and can be heard begging for a respite from electro-convulsive therapy - and occasionally, the sweat box. Though he frequently howls of the pain he suffers as a result, even mentioning that the treatment "burned up all my memories", he refuses to hear a word against Lamb, and can occasionally be heard stammeringly praising her for "fixing me up." Needless to say, the Crawler more commonly blames his targets instead. Interestingly, use of the Hypnotize plasmid results in the Crawler being sent on a flashback to his earliest therapy sessions with Sofia Lamb, where he will describe the various non-invasive therapies he was subjected to - including possible use of hypnosis. Buttons Seen only in Minerva's Den, Buttons is one of the programmers at work on the Thinker alongside Reed Wahl. Perhaps due to the fact that the Den was kept comparatively isolated from the civil war and Sofia Lamb's takeover of Rapture, Buttons hasn't been as badly-spliced as his fellows in other parts of the city; in fact, he often looks more akin to the Splicers of the first game. However, his madness is no less potent for it, and even this spindly programmer is more than willing to kill if it means satisfying his obsessions. Befitting his station, he wears a slightly-tattered lab coat with an ID card and pockets stuffed with pens; under this, he wears chalk-dusted sweaters, button-up shirts, ties, and baggy trousers. For good measure, unlike many Splicer models from around this era, Buttons is still in possession of both shoes. Sporting a receding hairline and crooked teeth, he sports a small growth on his forehead and some variants of this model can also sport growths or sores under his right eye; in all cases, his right eye is always bigger than the other. At times, variants of this model can even be albino, but this is the limit of his deformity. Plagued with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, Buttons has focused on his work to the exclusion of all other elements: he never mentions any interests outside of work, nor does he appear to have any friends or family; even when hypnotized, he cannot envision the player as a loved one or companion, only as a superior. In keeping with his devotion to machinery and code, he has difficulty seeing people as anything other than mechanical elements: he refers to Little Sisters as sensitive equipment, regards the player as a bug in the system, and sometimes even claims that opponents are numbers that have escaped from his equations; at times, he claims to be about to rip out the player's guts, swinging wildly between referring to them in organic terms and as diodes and wires, believing he can "fix" you this way. Sometimes, he even refers to himself in this way, claiming to feel "rewired" while being hypnotized. Religiously devoted to the Thinker, he seems to regard it almost as a god, and considers the forces that surrounds it - such as magnetic waves or the code it runs on - as anthropomorphic spirits that he can communicate with. He even believes that the Thinker has some kind of divine plan for him, and that everyone forms part of this "prime sequence." At times, he can be heard ranting that everyone is a sequence within a sequence within a sequence. Much like Reed Wahl, he also believes fervently in the existence of an equation that can predict the future, and that the Thinker has mastered this esoteric problem. However, perhaps because of this mystical devotion, he also appears to have difficulty justifying his own errors in the face of what he believes to be a perfect predictive equation, and when confronted by mistakes in programming, he will complain that "the numbers lie!" Heady Also encountered exclusively in Minerva's Den, Heady is a senior office administrator working around the Thinker, and takes her job even more seriously than Buttons. Stern, unforgiving and so cloistered in the corporate lifestyle that she cannot think outside of it, Heady sees everything through the lens of a white-collar office job and never once imagines a life outside. An older woman with a distinctly Nordic accent, Heady commonly dresses in conservative dresses and sweaters (complete with an ID card), and keeps her hair in a disorderly beehive. Much like Buttons, her disconnection from the conflict outside Minerva's Den has ensured that the deformities induced by Splicing are comparatively minimal: she appears to only sport a few small growths on her arm and an eye permanently forced shut by random skin folds across the right side of her face. A control freak by nature, she has little time for emotions and even less for inefficiency around the workplace: often, she can be heard musing that she can maximize the effectiveness of the programmers and eliminate redundancies among the typing pool by having these workers systematically murdered. She demands utmost obedience from all who work under her (assuming any of them are still alive in reality); even the Little Sisters do not escape this demand for unfaltering loyalty to the company. Also, she is not above corruption, often offering promotion to workers in exchange for certain incentives. She also appears to suffer from technophobia, and often complains that she cannot think with the magnetic waves of so many machines around her; ironically for her place of work, she seems to openly mistrust the Thinker, regarding its intentions as sinister and untrustworthy. At times, she even claims that the player was sent by the Thinker itself to sabotage her, or that all of her enemies are secretly being manipulated by the supercomputer. Combat Variants Thuggish Splicer The Thuggish Splicer is the most common of Rapture's inhabitants, and by far the most primitive: too deranged to work the trigger of a gun, they have been reduced to charging their opponents with lengths of pipe and other crude bludgeons, attacking without any thought to tactics or their own safety. Splicers such as these are weak and easily felled by the "one-two punch" of Electro Bolt combined with the Wrench, but make up for it by running fast and attacking in groups whenever they can. Later on in the game, this Splicer type upgrades, becoming immune to all electrical damage. Leadhead Splicer Smarter and more lucid than the Thuggish Splicers, Leadheads are still capable of using firearms and is usually found using pistols and machine guns. Almost as common as the previous variant, Leadheads can be found all over Rapture, and are considered a much greater threat not only due to their ability to wield guns, but also due to their grasp of self-preservation: Leadheads will always keep their distance from the player whenever possible, but at very close range they will attempt to pistol-whip them. For good measure, they are also much tougher than Thuggish Splicers, requiring more than just the one-two punch to put down. Spider Splicer The Spider Splicer is the first Splicer the player encounters upon arriving in Rapture, although the player only starts fighting them in Neptune's Bounty. Armed with razor-sharp hooks, these Splicers can use their blades to crawl on and cling to the ceiling and throw hooks at the player from afar, which can be caught and tossed back with Telekinesis. When on the ground, the Spider Splicer operates with hit-and-run tactics, attacking then immediately retreating - either leaping onto the ceiling or cartwheeling out of view - before attacking from a different angle. Their agility and ability to crawl on walls make them difficult to hit, and their modus operandi of attacking from above can easily surprise anyone who is unprepared, although one can easily hear their movement thanks to the telltale sound of cracking plaster. Houdini Splicer The Houdini Splicer is first encountered when the player enters Arcadia, and is immediately distinguished by its ability to teleport, dematerializing in one spot and materializing several feet away; fortunately, they can be tracked through the distinctive cloud of smoke that appears around them whenever they teleport, which becomes much more visible upon researching this Splicer to the fourth level. The Houdini Splicer will most often attack by shooting balls of fire (and, in some cases, ice), but like the Leadhead Splicer, will attack physically when at close range. Much like the Spider Splicer, the Houdini Splicer uses a hit-and-run strategy - in this case, appearing, firing an elemental attack, and then vanishing to repeat the cycle. Nitro Splicer Though first seen in the Medical Pavilion, Nitro Splicers are rarely found throughout the game and mostly encountered in Neptune's Bounty. They will attack by throwing grenades (and later, Molotov cocktails) at the player from a distance. At melee range, they will either throw a smoke bomb to the ground or they will attempt to flee, kicking the player or tossing explosives over their shoulder in an attempt to throw off pursuit. Upon dying, they will drop a live grenade as a last-ditch attempt to kill their attackers as well.. A common way of killing this Splicer type is by using Telekinesis to catch its grenades and throw them back at it. Researching this Splicer type will increase the chance that their explosives turn out to be duds. ''BioShock 2'' As a result of the extensive splicing that has occurred over the last eight years, the inhabitants of Rapture have changed significantly: though many of the models seen in the first game are still present, they have changed in appearance, strengths and personality. Among other things, Splicers are also able to throw grenades while firing their weapons at Delta; Spider Splicers are now exclusively composed of the "Crawler" character type; most prominently of all, Splicers are now much more lucid and much more dangerous than they were in the fist game, both due to additional mutations and the guiding influence of Sofia Lamb. Brute Splicer The Apex Predator of the Splicer population, the Brute Splicer is much bigger, more muscular and more powerful than any other Splicer. Aside from its naturally violent tendencies, the Brute's strength allows it the lion's share of ADAM in any given region, making them much more lucid than other Splicers - and therefore much more dangerous. Thanks to its overwhelming strength, it commonly attacks by picking up heavy pieces of debris and throwing them at its victims; at closer range, it charges at great speed, knocking its targets back and pummeling them senseless with its massive fists. Brutes can also perform vertical jumps on par with that of the Spider Splicers, launching themselves onto rooftops and walkways to seek out elevated prey. Some can even make use of aerial drones, using their turrets to soften up resistance before moving in for the kill. Towards the end of the game, the more common Brutes are replaced by the Elite Brute, a variant occurring only in Inner Persephone. Although similar Brutes, they are much stronger and possess nearly double the health, making them much more difficult to defeat. Dressed in the uniforms of orderlies, Elite Brute Splicers often attack Delta alongside an Alpha Series Big Daddy or one or two Leadhead Splicers, having learned the advantages of fighting as a pack; fortunately, they are still vulnerable to headshots and antipersonnel rounds. In Minerva's Den, the Brute Splicers are upgraded again, this time taking the form of the Fiery Brute Splicers: equipped with pyrokinetic plasmids, they are immune to fire-based attacks, and emit a blast of fire when struck in melee - similar to the Firestorm Gene Tonic. For good measure, these elite shock troops are easily distinguished by the fiery red/orange glow that envelops them, and the glowing superheated footprints they leave in their wake. ''Burial at Sea'' Before Rapture's Civil War caused Splicers to become mentally and physically unstable due to withdrawal, many Citizens were actually seen using Plasmids and Tonic enhancements, with little visible signs of genetic or mental damage. Some can be seen in Market Street and High Street, such as the waiter assisting customers at Le Temps Perdu, and a man attracting the opposite sex with his spliced aesthetics. This does not mean that dangerous Splicers were not present. Rogue Splicers, Many of them the remains of Fontaine's army, were locked away in the sunken Fontaine's Department Store, after Andrew Ryan and the City Council seized and shut down most of Fontaine's businesses. With there connection to Rapture's ADAM supply cut off, the splicers grew more and more deranged. Many are either Leadheads or Thuggish Splicers, and a newly seen Splicer type: the Frosty Splicer. These Splicers are not as mutated as those met during and after the Civil War, but show the characteristic mental instability associated with ADAM abuse, and various injuries from fighting Ryan's forces and each other. Being cut off from the rest of Rapture before the 1958 New Year's party, they lack the distinctive masquerade masks seen in earlier games. Most of these male Splicers can be seen wearing wooden crates or crudely cut-out poster images as masks, of brands like Hop-Up Soda, Circus of Values, and Meal-Time Frozen Dinners. Some female Splicers hide their faces with heavy makeup, or masks that are either domino-like or a facial prosthetic patch. Frosty Splicer Covered in protruding, icy growths, Frosty Splicers can fire multiple projectile blasts of ice at Booker DeWitt, not only causing him to be temporarily stunned, but freezing any enemy in the way as well. Their transformation is a result of an overdose of the new drinkable Plasmid, Old Man Winter. The first Frosty Splicer is encountered at Rapture on Ice. They are likely immune to frost-based (or similar) attacks. Trivia *Early in the design process of BioShock, Splicers were known only as "Aggressors". *The term "Splicer" is a reference to gene splicing, a natural process that occurs during RNA transcription in cells. *Several Splicer models are based on soldiers from the First World War, who sustained horrific facial injuries and subsequently underwent pioneering surgery to reconstruct their faces. *There is a last splicer model in BioShock 2 which was removed from the game and appears only in the "Hunting the Big Sister" video. Concepts art for this model also appear in the Deco Devolution artbook. Despite the model having a full face, the concept implied that most of his facial features and teeth are missing. The only inclusion of this Splicer model in the game appears in the prologue cutscene, as one of the 1958 Splicers that surround young Eleanor, which Subject Delta steps on him by dropping from above a staircase. One distinct trait of this model is the right sleeve is marked with a broken "Great Chain" symbol. *In BioShock 2 there is always one original model and three variations for each of the Splicers' models, plus some variations for specific levels or characters, such as Brute models dressed as orderlies and Toasty models dressed as inmates in Persephone Penal Colony, or Daniel and Simon Wales' Breadwinner and Crawler specific models. Most of these variations, which consist on different clothing, hair and skin colors, are shown in the ''Bioshock 2''artbook, Deco Devolution. *Frosty Splicers are based and reused of Cut Enemies named "Vigor Junkies" which they existed in flies as incomplete Shock Jockey Junkies put no attack animations and sound files. Put however some attack animations where put in used to Cornelius Slate a mildly shock jockey vigor junkie who a little crystals in his far-left in his forehead to distract Booker from using vigor due him being irrational belief that make him into motorized patriot. And enemy Crow were also part this Cut Enemy type judging from their concept arts and E3 2010 demo (When Crow junkie throw Crows on player) until they become separate Enemy in Retail version. 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